


thank god for small favours

by ellipsesificate



Category: Transformers: Beast Wars
Genre: 5+1 Things, Accidental Companionship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-18
Updated: 2014-08-18
Packaged: 2018-02-13 15:28:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2155662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellipsesificate/pseuds/ellipsesificate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rampage had no friends amongst the Predacons.  He did, however, manage to acquire a pest.  Five things Quickstrike convinced Rampage to do against all odds, and the one thing he did readily.</p>
            </blockquote>





	thank god for small favours

**Author's Note:**

> written by request on my tumblr, bc i am weak unlikely predpal trash, all hail

**[one.]**

“Betcha I could nail that critter from here.”

Rampage didn’t jump.  He did let out a single warning growl before bringing his foot down, forcing Quickstrike to skitter away to avoid injury.  Otherwise unconcerned, Quickstrike transformed and flailed his cobra-headed arm out in the direction of a pack of gazelles, grazing in the distance.

With the smaller bot outside of easy stomping range, Rampage sighed and leaned back against the rock he’d been watching the herd from, plans and decisions on whether not to massacre them all en masse or to evaluate which ones would give the best chase interrupted.  “Tell Megatron that I’ll be back when I feel like it.”

“Ain’t a rush.”  Quickstrike narrowed his optics as he tried to level his snake.  “The brown one there, I c’n geddit.”

“They’re all brown.”

“Naw, y’ain’t lookin right, this’uns a particular brown.”  Rampage just snorted, wondering how long he should humour his unwanted companion as Quickstrike continued to study his target.  “Ehh…I need a better angle, gimme a leg up.”

“What?”

The lack of proper refusal spurred Quickstrike into clambering up the other bot, using the rock as a foothold.  Just as he pulled himself onto Rampage’s shoulder, he abruptly found himself dangling upside down.  “He-EY, what the heck?!  I can’t git a good shot from here!  …well, I prob’ly _could_ …”

Rampage shook him hard, forcing Quickstrike’s attention onto himself.  “What is the _meaning_ of this?”

“Uh…”  Arms flailing, Quickstrike’s optics flickered in honest confusion.  “I told ya, I need a leg up.  To nail the critters.  Didja forget?”

Snarling, Rampage lifted Quickstrike closer to his face, optics narrowing.  “Do not think that I will stand to be demeaned like this – try to climb onto me again, and I will take each of your legs and why are you turning away from me, do you _want_ to be dismembered?”

“I hear ya,” Quickstrike said, nodding as he twisted around in the grip to aim at the pack once again, before dropping his arm in frustration and turning back to Rampage plaintively.  “But lissen, you lemme get in jist one shot from here, and I’ll keep the boss bot off yer back for the next while, eh?”

“I could crush you instead.”

“First off, he’ll jist round up them other varmints to keep an eye on ya, an’ second, I wouldn’t mind the tussle.  I c’n take ya.”

Rampage could not deign himself to respond to the second statement, but the fuzor had brought up a decent first point – as little as Megatron cared for his troops, he likely wouldn’t let Rampage get away with crushing all of them.  He thought it over silently, his prisoner swinging in his hand, before finally twisting his wrist so that Quickstrike could properly face the herd.

Whooping, Quickstrike pumped both arms before directing the cobra once more.  Rampage couldn’t see his face from this angle, but had no doubt that his expression (limited as it was) was ridiculous.

“Watch this an’ weep!” he said, green light bursting from the snake before he had finished speaking.  While Rampage had no compulsion to weep, he did watch in a grudgingly impressed silence as the laser soared over the still quietly grazing herd, and into a withered bush.

“Amazing,” Rampage said as flames licked up from the twigs and leaves.  The gazelles glanced at it before trotting en masse, away from the growing fire and from the two Predacons.  “That was a good several yards from your brown one.”

“Aw, shut it.”

* * *

**[two.]**

“I’m tellin’ ya, I c’n jump it, easy.”

“And I wouldn’t be impressed,” Rampage snapped, arms crossed as he watched Quickstrike scuttle along the edge of a rocky rift only a few feet wide.  “Are we going to finish this patrol or will I have to cram you down there and finish this round myself?”

Snorting, Quickstrike clicked his pincers at the crevice, as if it were something he could intimidate.  “S’not like we’re bein’ expected back anytime soon – ain’t been any action of late, can’t blame a feller for wantin’ a bit a fun.  Now, hows ‘bout I make the leap in beast mode – or, transform midway…with a backflip!  That’ll be somethin’ to tell Sugarbot!”

“I’m going to kick you,” Rampage said, lifting his leg.

The fuzor didn’t even bother to turn around.  “Heh, you jist don’ want me to upshow you.”

“Preposterous.”  Regardless, Rampage didn’t bring his leg swinging into his partner.  “Anyone can just walk across it.  You cannot honestly expect me to be impressed.”

“Yer just yellow.”

“ _What?_ ”

“I’m gonna make this jump and yer gonna be ‘shamed cuz you couldn’.”

“I still don’t know what you mean by yellow.”

Quickstrike backed up, uneven with every excited twitch in his legs.  “Better record this, all them tinhorns back at base are gonna wanna see it.”

“Stop this.”

“See ya on the other side, varmint!”

It was then, just as Quickstrike was darting beneath him, that Rampage remembered that his foot was still raised – it came down onto the fuzor’s back with a _crunch_.  “Enough of this,” Rampage said over Quickstrike’s pained howl.  “I will demonstrate to you just what a pitiful achievement this would be, and you will shut up.”

All he needed to do was make a simple hop.  Get it over with quickly in the least dramatic manner possible.  Ridiculous, but it would make whatever point he was trying to prove.

Quickstrike scoffed, quiet and staticky.  “Don’t snap any supports there, y’old pod.”

He lifted his foot – not before grinding it into Quickstrike’s chassis – and spun around, away from the rift.  Mindful of the awkward weight of weaponry on his back, he bent his knees, and jumped.

It was the most beautiful flip he had executed in his entire life – not that he’d had to do them often, not when it was easier to simply mow down your enemies instead of playing acrobatics with them, but when he landed heavily yards ahead and turned back to face his challenger, he couldn’t help the twinge of pride at the bright admiration in Quickstrike’s optics.

“Well I’ll be!” Quickstrike hooted, shuffling forward despite the nasty dent in his back.  “Do it again!”

* * *

**[three.]**

“’Page!”

His blaster was drawn and shoved into Quickstrike’s face before Rampage even realised that he had turned around.  To Quickstrike’s credit (and his own disappointment) he didn’t flinch, just stared back up hopefully.

“Been lookin’ everywhere for ya,” he said, optics glancing at the barrel hanging steadfast before him.  “Boss Bot’s bein’ right tetchy, wants us to go on an energon run.”

“These are my private quarters.”

Quickstrike squinted up at him.  “What ‘bout it?  ‘Sides, it don’t seem very private when yer missing a wall—OWW.”

Holstering his blaster as Quickstrike rubbed the new dent in his helm, Rampage crossed his arms, making it a point to not look at said empty space where a wall would normally be. “It’s called boundaries.  Learn them.  Understand them.  Comm me next time.”

“Well, I…”  Quickstrike slumped, shifting his gaze to the side with a grumble as Rampage stomped by him.  “Shoot, coulda done that, would’ve saved me a bit of…”

Rampage interrupted his rambling as he marched down the corridor as he stepped over patches where panels had been knocked loose into the lava below.  “Where exactly does our _brilliant leader_ want us to go?”

“Uh, out to grid – ‘kay, can yeh just slow down for a minute there?!”

“Are you serious?” Rampage groaned, turning back around to see Quickstrike staggering after him.  It was then that Rampage saw his right leg, half melted, twisted, and scored black.  “What did you do.”

“I ain’t done nothin’!” Quickstrike said as he dragged himself beside Rampage, looking at him balefully.  “I was jist…tryin’ to prove to Sugarbot that I ain’t ‘fraid of no lava.  Then Bug Eyes wouldn’ pull me out fast enough so I had to shove ‘im in face first.  Then ‘Ferno had to be a tattler and now Boss Bot’s bein’ a big ol’ jerk about it and won’t let me get CR’d and he’s sendin’ me out on a run.  It’s all jist unfair to me.”

Rampage drew himself up into his full height, optics burning down on Quickstrike as he shrank in on himself, sheepish.  “And what, pray tell, do I have to do with this then?”

“…it’d be darned nice if you was a pal and gave me a lift?”

The floor panels shook when Rampage made a step back towards his quarters, and Quickstrike fell hard with a cry of dismay.

“It’s for you too!” he called out to Rampage’s retreating back, snake hissing frantically as he tried to reorient himself, or at least pull himself into a sitting position.  “Boss Bot was talkin’ ‘bout gettin’ you to scrub some grime off the hull.  Can’t do that if yer with me, huh?”

Rampage stopped with a grimace.  He didn’t doubt that Quickstrike was being truthful about that at least – Megatron lately had the strangest fixation with getting Rampage to perform meaningless chores around the base.  He drew the line at filtering out the filth left in Megatron’s personal CR tub.

Groaning, he turned back around to Quickstrike, who was still rambling in what he would have liked to be fear but was most likely lingering hope.  “…heck, I could cover that for ya, if you’d like, we’s gotta look out for each other.  If ya think ‘bout it, I’m lookin’ out for yer keister – hey!”

“I’m holding you to that,” Rampage rumbled, shaking Quickstrike by his hood to let him know he meant business as he carried him down the hall.  “You cover those ridiculous tasks for the next week, you understand?”

Quickstrike’s laughter pitched high.  “You got it, partner!”

* * *

**[four.]**

“HEY ‘PAGE!”

He picked up his pace past the makeshift common room, but it was too late – Quickstrike was already calling time out to Waspinator and Inferno as he scurried after, stubbornly calling his name despite the returned silence.  In a last bid for attention, Quickstrike leaped for Rampage’s leg.

The leg whipped up, and both foot and glare pinned Quickstrike against the wall.  “Whatever it is,” Rampage said, voice low and dark, “my answer is no.  Leave me in peace.”

“Just wanna…know if ya wanted to play cards with us.”  Quickstrike writhed beneath the weight of Rampage leaning in.  “The bugs…they’s gainin’ up on me…reckon you could show ‘em what’s what.”

“‘What’s what’ is that I have no interest in games, or in socializing.  I will admit a slight interest in seeing you defeated by those two fools, but not enough to play along.”

Quickstrike whined and his snake hand thrashed instinctively against the leg, nipping uselessly at the armour.  “C-C’mon, I bet my collection of cool rocks ‘gainst those tinhorns and they’re runnin’ me down.  ‘Sides, yer a clever ‘bot, you’d be a dab hand at this game.  Make ‘em suckers pay for screwin’ ya over in that last tussle with them Maxies, without gettin’ Boss Bot on yer case!  Eh?”

The pressure stopped increasing, and then Rampage slowly eased off, letting Quickstrike slide down to the floor with a sigh of relief.  Rampage glanced back at the common room entrance, just as Waspinator was pulling his head back in with a buzz.  “…just this once.”

Technically, no one won the ensuing game.  Waspinator fled the room when it was clear that Rampage was dissatisfied with his and Quickstrike’s luck in the draw and Inferno spent far too long lecturing the two of them on why the destruction of the table wouldn’t be of any benefit to the colony to recall the instigation afterwards, so neither were likely to try and claim what would have been their spoils.  Rampage regretted the whole ordeal immensely when Quickstrike tried to high five him for the next week.

* * *

**[five.]**

Normally, he considered monitor duty to be a relief.  Not the same kind of relief as the ruthless energy of battle and the fear of his enemies, but it usually afforded some peace when he either did it by himself or with a partner who was too scared or too apathetic to make conversation with him.  The exception was with Quickstrike, who spent more time trying to tell Rampage clearly made up tales of his achievements in past conflicts than actually watching his monitor, so something was clearly wrong when Quickstrike remained silent over the first stretch of their shift.

Of course, it was Quickstrike, so it couldn’t last forever.

“Haven’t seen yer swimmin’ pal yet, in case y’wanted to know,” he said, suddenly enough that Rampage looked at him before he remembered to remain aloof.  “Since he’s yer ol’ pal and all.”

“I don’t want to know what you’re on about.”

Quickstrike kept his optics on the monitor, but his voice got louder with indignation.  “I jist thought that since yer fond enough of ‘im to leave me, injured, t’get back to base on my lonesome, that’d you’d like to know he ain’t hangin’ around where we can see ‘im.  Jist so y’now.”

Snorting, Rampage turned back to his monitors.  “I have _ran over_ _you_ before, but leaving you behind _once_ is what upsets you?  Ridiculous.”

“Ain’t ridiculous!” Quickstrike said, slamming his multi-limbed hand against the controls.  “Here I was thinkin’ we was buddyin’ up, but the second some ol’ hombre of yers shows up, I’m left for the ditch!  I’ve _shot_ him for you!”

With nothing to grab his attention on the monitors, Rampage turned back around.  “I can assure you, you and I have not been ‘buddyin’ up’, but as much as my hatred for you grows with every passing moment, I despise Depth Charge more.”

Quickstrike stared at him, shoulders relaxing.  “…this for real?”

“Of course.  I can learn how to cope with you.  Depth Charge at least _purposefully_ seeks to ruin my life.”

And like that, all of Quickstrike’s hostility disappeared, and with a guffaw he leaned over and slapped Rampage on the back.  “Whoo, ain’t that a load offa me!  How y’knowin’ the feller anyways?”

“That,” Rampage said, shoving Quickstrike out of his personal space, “is none of your concern.”

Quickstrike leaned back in his seat expectantly.  “Aw, come now – I don’t know a plum thing ‘bout you, ‘cept that yer a bit on the freak side of things.  Ain’t even gonna ‘splain this one thing?”

“What a shame,” Rampage said, a snarl on the edge of his voice.  “Maybe I could divulge if the possibility of swapping stories was a reality.  Unfortunately, you’re an amnesiac who’s already told me about every minute of his short life, and I wouldn’t even care enough if it was otherwise.  It’s _my_ personal business.”

“Aww…not even a tidbit?  At least tell me if he’s all riled up over you, I dunno, kickin’ one of his pals when he was down?”

Rampage couldn’t stop himself from correcting such a grievous mistake – to allow him to continue thinking that Rampage would do something as low-level as that would mean that Quickstrike would never learn to properly fear him.  “I _ate_ his friends.  Plural.”

He cursed himself when Quickstrike’s optics went wide with awe.  “Yer kiddin’…that’s ‘bout one of the toughest things I’ve ever heard.”

“And that wasn’t even the most of it,” Rampage said, voice harsh with warning for what he would do if Quickstrike tried to press for more – not that it did any good, because Quickstrike was now sitting up straight enough to put Inferno to shame.  “Not that you’ll ever get to know.”

“Aw, now yer jist bein’ a tease!  Not even a li’l story?  Where’d you even meet ‘im?”

“Nowhere you’d know.”

“Was it one of them bars Bug Eyes talked ‘bout once?”

“Omicron was a bit more than a—dammit.”

“Yeah-ha!  Guess what I’m askin’ Big T ‘bout when I see ‘im next.”

“How about you shut up before I—”

The two jumped when their comms suddenly pinged.  “Rampage!  Quickstrike!  What are you two fools _doing?!_ ”

“Boss Bot!”  Even though he wasn’t in the room with them, Quickstrike spun back around in his seat to scan the monitors and look like he was doing his job.  “Uh, jist about to call ya actually, looks like we have some Maxie activity in—”

Megatron burst into a crackling growl.  “I know there’s Maximal activity in our territory, though it would have been nice if we had known sooner due to you two _doing your jobs!_   I want both of you down there to deal with them, _now!_ ”

“On our way, Boss Bot!” Quickstrike said, but the line had already gone dead and Rampage was on his feet heading for the exit; he needed a good fight about now.  He had to jog, but Quickstrike managed to catch up and keep pace with his companion.  “Hey, you’ll tell more when we’re done kickin’ some Maxie keister, right?”

“Oh, _whatever_.”

* * *

**[+ one.]**

Pebbles bounced off his armour as the boulder shook with each blast from the Maximals.  With a low growl rumbling in his chest plates, Rampage twisted around to fire off a couple of his own shots.  The return fire sent Quickstrike tumbling from his perch on top of their cover.

“Hey, crab cakes!” Quickstrike said, picking himself up and shaking the kinks out of his arms.  “I got me an idea!”

“Is it a good one?  Nevermind, that’s a pointless question.”

“This one’s a winner, I swear!  All ya gotta do is launch me!”

Rampage paused mid-shot and glanced down.  “What.”

“Y’heard me!”  The snake head bobbed up and down as Quickstrike leaned up, optics wide.  “Can’t do nuthin’ if we’re stuck behind here, but y’get me some air and I can blast them Maxis before they see me comin’!”

Rampage considered it for all of a second.  “Why not.”

“Now we’re talkin’ – WHOA!”

Before Quickstrike could prepare himself, Rampage snatched him up by the head, moved away from the rock, pulled back his arm, and let loose.  Putting his hands on his hips, Rampage admired the way Quickstrike flailed through the air, and dropped when three different blasts struck him down.  “You know what.  We can work on that.”


End file.
